Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 26
26
Acknowledged
Collect comprehensive data on reproductive health delays, referrals, and treatment outcomes to address inequalities
Conclusion
Data and analysis must improve. The NHS should collect data on where there are delays in the system, where women are being referred from, which could highlight areas where community provision is lacking, which groups of women are most affected by delays, to allow better understanding of health inequalities, how many women are waiting for more than one type of treatment, and the satisfaction and outcomes of follow-ups, including which women and girls access this pathway. (Paragraph 99) 76 Period poverty
Government response summary AI-generated
The government commits to reviewing and updating existing e-learning training packages for primary care practitioners to promote opportunistic reproductive healthcare during routine contacts like the 6-8 week maternal postnatal check. It will also consider what else can be done to maximise routine contact points but does not commit to collecting the specific data points requested to improve analysis of delays and inequalities.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government · verbatim extract
Acknowledged
We agree with the importance of robust data collection that supports analysis to help identify where and what interventions are most appropriate. NHS England’s plan on reforming elective care for patients (linked in ‘Introduction’ above) is clear that transparency is vital to help patients understand how their local and national health services are performing. It sets out that NHS England will publish a suite of adult’s and children’s elective performance metrics (including 18-week performance, long waits and waiting times) in an accessible format, which can be ranked and used by both NHS staff and the public. NHS England will also publish data that can be ranked on all aspects of choice. This will sit alongside, and make use of, published information on NHS England’s website and will be available on the NHS App. NHS England also commits to: increasing the availability and use of elective, cancer and outpatient data improving our understanding of clinical conditions by expanding diagnostic coding in elective care The expectation is that this will be standard practice in acute providers by March 2027. Patient experiences more broadly are routinely collected for people attending healthcare services through the Friends and Family Test (linked in the government response to ‘Recommendation 11’ in ‘Accessing treatment and support’ above).
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